Xia Yu comes from Anhui and is engaged in sex
“Among our interviewees,
work in Beijing. She has breast implants and, in
97% had chosen to leave
order to avoid exposing her identity, she contacts
their hometown and the
her family only infrequently: “I haven’t been home in
people and societies with
years. I say I’m too busy at work and can’t get away.
which they were familiar,
When they want to come and visit me, I say, I don’t
and were struggling for
have time to keep you company.”
survival as strangers
79
Female attire and makeup, long hair and breast
implants all have to be concealed as much as
possible during family visits. Binbin’s methods
in the relatively openminded environments of
major cities...”
are very typical: “Going back home is really
inconvenient. I can’t wear makeup. I have to pin back my hair and put it under a hat.
I haven’t dared have large breast implants; I’ve kept them small so they can’t be seen
under my clothes. When the time comes, I just strap them down and wear loose
shirts.”80
Anna, from Hunan, was forced to remove her implants when she went home: “I had
implants before. I really wanted to become a woman and be sexier, and m H[\[